Two nights before arriving to Kashgar, my first orchard camp. This is my proof to Matt and Lucas, of North East South West by Bike that I don’t sleep under roads and bridges…and train tracks EVERY NIGHT.
The three of us will be leaving Kashgar on Saturday morning and riding to Osh, Kyrgyzstan together. The border crossing is closed on weekends so we should arrive Monday morning.
We are a little worried of the weather, as it was snowing and raining here this morning.
-162 Meters.
I have now visited the highest (and in the world) and lowest salt water lakes of China.
For the past 4 days I’ve been camping under the G30 and getting over mountains with a headwind. My face is so chapped and windburned – bad.
I made yellow snow…well, not on the center…about a meter away. When nature calls…and well, there is an opportunity to say, “I pee’d at the Center of Asia!” – how can you resist?!
Both cameras are non-functioning in the cold. I was able to warm up the Nikon D700 to get a couple of shots and the point and shoot wouldn’t let me use the timer. Every time I would turn it off, and then back on, it would be reset.
Couldn’t help but think of my artist pal, Stephen Talasnik.
It was a ride down (then a climb) to the “Center” and even saw a frozen tear on my eyelash. No, I wasn’t that moved by where I was going…the wind was being mean to me.
I’ve been riding UP for the past two days, along the 216.
Yesterday was rough, I realized how out of shape I was.
Today, well…um.
So, after visiting the Center of Asia I continue South and I know I need to cut off to get off this route. There is no way I’m going to live through a 4000m pass in the middle of February. I am pretty sure I would freeze to death. My cameras can’t even handle this cold.
I got in close to 60km today and a hearty lunch and I’m looking desperately for the turn off. Something is very strange. There should be signs but I see nothing.
After a couple of baby climbs today, and then watching a crazy ass looking dog run a kilometer down the mountain to come eat my face off, I pulled over to the police checkpoint.
I gave in. The sun was setting an my options were bleak. I saw nothing ahead…except one or two dump trucks with coal. Not even locals.
“Excuse me, I need to find some accommodation tonight. Ahead or behind and how many kilometers.”
“Ahead, you can’t go, the road is very very bad. It’s not safe. You should go back.”
“How many km behind.”
“40”
Quick math…shit, that’s taking me back where I slept LAST NIGHT!
I can’t freeze to death…I don’t know if I could make it through the night.
“Okay, thank you.” Now, if I wasn’t freezing I would of gone on and said screw it…but this is my life I’m talking about.
As I begin to turn around.
“If you wait a moment, you can put your bike in the back of the pickup truck and we can give you a ride.”
Oh hell yes!
The bike gets thrown over some frozen vomit and I pile in with an officer and his two adorable children. Something is different about their appearance. The boy has brown hair. His name is Jerry and he is 6…Alice is 10. Their English pronunciation is fantastic and Jerry starts chatting in English from the beginning. Dad is giving Alice a speech in Chinese about how she needs to practice and she says she can’t and he repeats, very gently and even loving…”yes, you can do it yourself…you can.”
It turns out he is Hazu (Kazakh minority) and his wife, their mother, is Russian! Beautiful children.
We pass the road I should of taken to cut over and he tells me the road is bad. Still mountains and the roads are not paved. These are the roads I LOVE when the weather is warm and the locals spend their free time sitting about.
In winter…no one is around, no one to ask for directions, no one to sit with and have a picnic with. Right now, my mission is to get out of this cold. Especially when my camera is malfunctioning.
He gets me to last nights town and he offers to take me back to Urumqi…as the other route is “fangbian”.
It takes me 2 minutes to “cut my loss” and I say, “okay, lets go!”
So, here I am, on the Southern tip of Urumqi…where I’ve lived for the past 2 months.
I’ve been thinking all day if I should just cut my losses and turn back and do it. From the maps, it was showing no towns of any kind. Little villages along the way but not even restaurants.
I HATE backtracking…it’s probably my #1 of stuff I DON’T DO. But…I guess, we can say it takes more guts to cut my losses and realize I could die if I were to continue on that insane road up and over the Tianshan mountains.
Shepherd. He was looking at me strangely so I flash my big ol’smile and give him a nice American “Hello”. He returns the smile and “Hello” from his amazing 5 o’clock shadow.
I thought boys on bikes made me weak in the knees…Uyghur cowboys are a whole other story. I’ve told some people I can’t buy my naan from handsome men because I blush too much. Yeah, I need to get a hold on that one.
This is where I should of turned off to head East…this was across the road.
And, see, I told you “zhusu” walls are the best. This was next to my head. I’m trying to figure out if it’s homegrown porn and then what’s the deal with the foot print like 1 meter from the ground? Click on the photo for a larger image.
Maybe they were stomping the Hepatitis out!
Little did I know that it would be the last of tarmac about 3km down, and another quarter of kilometer…I would also lose my partner.
That is Namucuo (Namu Lake) in the background.
The previous night, we had camped in a yak field with a rolling stream and a couple of nomad families. Brandon and I had snuck past a major police checkpoint.
When we were checking out the situation, and scoping out the police checkpoint, a Tibetan boy had approached Brandon when he was peeking from around a corner. He was getting frustrated with the Tibetan because he was blowing his cover.
They both walk to where I’m hiding, the Tibetan is very modern. Wearing his mesh back trucker hat, face mask, his sunscreen leaving a white film on his face, and I SWEAR he was wearing eyeliner.
Brandon: “Ask him if he’s ever seen other foreigners…”
Tibetan: “Yes.”
Me: “Have you seen them with bikes?”
Tibetan: “Yes.” He points past the checkpoint up a hill and says, “If you go up that way they won’t see you.”
I translate to Brandon…we both smirk at each other, both knowing that this guy may “know whats up”.
It would be our last camp together. Brandon made an interesting noodle mix with the fried sardines with black beans. I would sit next to him, at his tent opening, smoking a cigarette each…staring at the stars. Even after our little snips at one another during the day, we had an enjoyable conversation to finish the day.
The next day, morning…he said something snarky about the colors of my clothes and how they don’t camouflage very well. I didn’t respond. Then he challenges me on my opinion on the “Thai” guy I had seen in Qinghai pedaling North. I respond under my breath, enough to let him know I’m tired of his bad attitude.
(Note to cycling apparel companies: COULD YOU PLEASE PLEASE QUIT MAKING WOMEN’S CLOTHES IN PURPLES, PINKS, TURQUOISES…really, seriously!!!!)
I head out 30 mins before him and find a crossing over the stream. Looking back, I watch him removing his bags and throwing them over the water. I can see his blood boiling and steam coming from his ears.
We spend our mornings separate, with separate Tibetan nomads. I am given a radish to eat on the road.
Brandon holds onto a truck and is pulled up the pass. It takes me 3 hours. At one point, I’m walking and this little girl comes running up to me.
I help her up on my saddle and I’m pushing the bike as she is “riding’. It surely made my load heavier…but we had a really good time for about 10 minutes. When she was ready to get off, she let me know…we said our goodbyes and she returned to her tent. I could hear her exclaiming something inside.
We are both aggravated by the time we BOTH are at the peak. Things are just falling apart…and there is a final explosion. Leaving me slumped over in a yak field, crying, perhaps…maybe…a little hysterical. I think I shout every curse word that I could come up with under my tears.
I would receive an apology text a couple hours later.